Airforce strength is at it's lowest. The navy is expending it's strength while the IAF is losing it's strength in terms of equipment till the MMRCA comes along and then the fifth ten fighter.
Army is not that bad I would imagine. Although the arjun didn't come along, the tank aquisition is not held up as the T 90s are coming along. Missile regs are in place. Brahmos coming good and other S2S missiles as well. Only thing held up now is the howitzer and attack helos.

I think the navy is clearly doing better than the other two by consistently inducting state-of-the-art ships. The naval dockyards are brimming with activity as projects are lined-up one after the other.

The InA is doing fairly well too. As Yusuf stated above, the massive T-90S induction is keeping our armour strength on the brim.
They might not be the best tanks in the world, but their massed strength packs quite a punch.

Which leaves us with the InAF...
And I don't think they are doing very well.
LCA is plagued by problems and MMRCA is being continuously delayed, the PAKFA shows no promise of success, and our fighter-bombers are becoming outdated(except the Su-30MKI)...

At this stage, for reasons obvious to ya'll, not the Air Force but even then, I believe there ll be some rapid acquisition in IAF in future, so I'd still rate the moderinsation program as better compared to the Navy.

The Indian Navy's modernisation and expansion program has been so slow and neglected from 70s to late 80s , that even the modest acquisitions we are seeing now starting since the last decade, which are essential to its role as the premium blue water navy in IOR strike us as spectacular.

Contrast this with IA which has had very clearly defined objectives and thus regular upgradation in weapons procurement according to its needs. Unlike the serious vaccum in req. weapon systems which IAF is likely to face in the middle of next decade if the delays continue and which IN has already faced in the past, The IA has been lucky to have a continuous process of mainting its requisite arsenal, and I believe it ll continue to expand better and faster than the other two services.

Yes, I am an Army fanboy and obviously then, the sole vote for Indian Army is mine

The navy is surely on the forefront, especially with indigenous ship building capability. The navy should be emulated by the other forces I believe. The AF is currently a weak link i feel with dwindling fleet numbers.

So far whatever I have read in this whole thread would not going to bring us to any valuable conclusion. It would be a same age old repeation of everything of camparing every arm of the armed forces with each other and quantifying their strength.

As someone above said, IN is acquiring 33 warships in next five years. But as far as track record of production is concerned, it is highly dubious. Since most of the warships that were lied in production line were highly fighting with design changes, inadequate expertise and at the same time lack of fund. Even procurement of some vital subsystems also hinder entire progress. Under such circumstances acquiring 33 warships in next five years is highly far fetch idea.

And yes, now performance and role of IA, IAF and IN doesn't restrict to bombing enemy line, rather it has become lot more complex with arrival of new battlefield that is none other then "Urban Warfare" where all this armada of MRCA, Warships or Tanks have very little or no role to play.

We first need to figure out wheather our Navy has ability to coordinate with smallest of element like small fisherman to track small boats armed with terrorist or not. Yesterday itself, Naval Survialliance aircraft photographed a Vessel with suspected terrorist on the coast of Cochin and their hunt is still on.

So in my conclusion, rather then quantifying strength of our armed forces from gigantic equipment they possess or about to aquire, we need to see what kind of a Networking warfare they are aliging to deal with our enemies. Since our long lasting opponent aren't stupid enough to challange indian armed forces openly, rather they are playing proxy war.

The Indian Navy is miles ahead of the IAF and IA because the simple fact is that everything the top brass has ordered with the exception of the Gorshov has showed up on time(In the recent present at least) and I hope will continue to do so in the near future. In that sense the IA and the IAF are in a horrible shape.

So now people seem to have accepted my views that i placed in the AKASH SAM related thread. Just stop all kind of foreign help and collaboration to our the three sections of our armed forces and see the fun. IA & IAF will almost seize to exists where as navy may loose some theeth but will continue to service with decent appearance. Wht they are not making ..just think ... big war ships , big frigates , small frigates , corvettes , FAC , huge aircraft career, SSBN , torpedoes , mines ,almost 80% of the top notch EW equipments. A truely greatttttt success. IA & IAF comes no where. simply outclasses out gunned ...dwarfed by miles. IAF has started learning slowly.good for them. But only solution for INDIAN ARMY is chinese help , a few thousand sq km of indian land , some more face off for indians and you will see suddenly they will realize how good a system AKASH is.When DRDO said our armed forces must be ready to accept equipment those are 10% below the presently available stuff in the international market ...most of the commerce and arts graduate indian journalists pounced on them.Who hardly know how to solve a quadratic equation starts commenting on what is technically good and what is not. military technology is a very specialized branch where know how from several spheres are molded together and fine tuned to the extreme level. Just have the technology or know how in scientific terms is not enough to translate them to military application. It took ages for developed nations to reach this state. There were times when big powers had only one goal of their existence i.e building more and more powerful killing mechines by absorbing every bit of available technology from science community. India never observed that period and now things hv drastically changed. So much of importance cannot be attributed to defence any more. So anyone who is expecting india to reach the zenith starting from 0 level with very little funds invested in R&D is just folloing himself. It will take time and honesty.Only then things will change permanently for india. Even kaveri engine is slowly picking up and i am sure when indian MCA will scream pass powered by KAVERI GTX no one will remember these futile articles which we are writing at present to criticize this indigenous effort. Only area in which IA has trusted drdo completely that is surveillance and see the result. We have some significant edge on our neighbors in this dept. Indian command and control system has become a matter worth espionage for chinese planners. HAl could have simply picked up a mig 21 added a canard to it ..made a few changes in its air frame to increase it payload and range and developed our tejas.that would have taken some 6/7 yrs but none of the technologies related to this project would have had any impact on any of the future projects. Just by purchasing arms we will never be able to intimidate out enemies. We need the ability to build things in numbers , maintain them , replace them when lost only then we will be reckoned with respect. I cant believe that indian industry is not capable enough to build big guns but see the fun no one ever thought about it. Still bofors and bla bla is going on. Pinaka being such big hit has given so much punch to IA. indigenous products has another big factor with them and tht is the element of surprise. IF Tejas are accomodated in good numbers it will take IAF to a different level altogether.

If we overlook the shortage of subs we are facing then IN is definitely way ahead of IA & IAF. As far as IAF goes a lot depends on the MMRCA deal, the PAK FA development and how soon the LCA gets fully operational.